The establishment of the European Economic Community in 1958 was one of the most remarkable developments in the history of the post-World War II era. It aimed for nothing less than a complete economic union so that goods, people, and capital would be able to pass over national boundaries of member countries as freely as they move within any one country. As the Community's target date of 1992 for economic integration draws closer, the need for information, both current and historical, becomes more urgent. The aim of this annotated bibliography is to create a critical and descriptive list of books published mainly in English for businessmen and analysts, combining older publications with new. The literature on the EC is vast and issues The Community itself nearly 3000 publications a year. The range of material covered in this volume is distinguished by its great scope. Historical sections provide listings on the postwar years of economic recovery, the development of the EC, and biographies of the leading personalities involved. Policy-oriented sections encompass such subjects as labor, transportation, environment, energy, and education. The political ramifications of economic union, financial and fiscal affairs, relations between the EC and the Third World, and foreign relations in general are dealt with in separate sections. The volume concludes with a listing of major European Community publications. The sheer bulk of published material on the EC, much of it duplication, has made keeping up with its developments difficult for small and medium in Europe and elsewhere. This invaluable sourcebook will provide the business community and the political establishments with better access to EC information as they grapple with the implications of 1992.

This book, first published in 1992, provides vital information on the changes in Western European information services resulting from the new European Community. Through an elaboration of the information infrastructure supporting political, economic, social, and bibliographic interconnections among Western European nations, readers will gain a detailed understanding of this multifaceted landscape. It contains informative chapters on topics such as information policy and library status in the European Community, standardization and other cooperative strategies among libraries in Europe, bibliographic access in the United Kingdom, access to information stores in Nordic countries, access to selected European online databases, and implications of European libraries’ cooperative developments for American libraries. This revelatory book features the thinking of distinguished experts on key initiatives in the European information community.